Airline Reverse Discrimination-Obesity

I learned something interesting recently.....

When I was super morbidly obese, I got upgraded to business class quite often. Mostly on international or cross country flights.

I always thought it was because of my frequent flyer status...... and it may be part true as I am finding out.

Recently I was in a car for a couple of hours with some airline employees, turns out that although NOT A POLiCY, often times an obese person will be upgraded to business for the comfort of others in coach.

So it turns out, having airline status and obesity may give you a higher chance of being upgraded !!!

I thought about it and coincidence or not, since my azz got small I haven't been upgraded ???

The good part is, coach feels like business when your smaller !!!!

frisco

Interesting insight into how airlines might juggle the difficulties of MMO people and the possible discomfort to other passengers.

As an aside,  I'm interested in your thoughts about airlines charging MMO people for an extra seat should they not comfortably fit in one and may encroach on other passengers space. Do you think this is fair? I'm sure lots if people have their own thoughts, I would be interested in hearing discussions for or against.

Best wishes :)

I think if you have to use 2 seats you need to pay for that seat IF your flight is full.

Fair enough. What if the flight isn't full but you still had someone needing to take up the 2 seats?

Ps wish I'd been bumped to business, it sure is an interesting take on things

I think if the flight isn't full, chances are they're gonna have to move someone around to accommodate everyone. At the airlines discretion they might kiss off the money for the extra seat since they weren't gonna make any money off of it anyway, & they want return business from everyone, plus sized or not. 

If the flight isn't full then the airline isn't losing money from that seat, so they should just let them have the extra seat.  If you have a baby, you have to buy a seat for the car seat for them, but if the flight isn't full I don't think they should charge them either

I try and pay for first class when I can.

When I was coming back from a school trip with my son, one of the people at the gate took a gander at me and pulled me aside and made some accommodations so that I would not have anyone sitting directly next to me (I was on the window).

I read this somewhere:  Part of the problem is that airlines based their seat size in the 50s or 60s off the average full grown man (5'8", 165 pounds in 1960) and have tried to figure out how to make the seats SMALLER over time.  The average man is taller and heavier now.

I know that wouldn't change the fact that I still take up a lot of room on a plane, but it would help.

I wonder if someone like Michael Phelps was flying coach, would they ask him to pay for an extra seat to accommodate his shoulders?

Hell, I'm not at all tall, but I have a wide frame. My shoulders don't fit in the confines of an airline seat and I'm 5'7". 

My husband was tall and this was such an issue also.  He sat in fear waiting for someone to put their seat back jamming his knees....

I did not fly enough as a MO person to get upgraded. However, I was often given seats without neighbors on unfilled flights. Interesting info. Even as a thin person my shoulders do not fit within the confines of the airline seat. I always try to take a window or aisle seat for that reason.